Milwaukee residents stand to benefit from a recent Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling that extends employment protections to people with municipal citations.
The court found that individuals with these noncriminal citations on their record are entitled to the same protections from employment discrimination as individuals with criminal records.
Protecting people in this way can help them avoid the long-term consequences of criminal justice involvement, said Juliann Bliefnick, operations coordinator for FREE, a statewide organization that supports currently and formerly incarcerated women and girls.
“Hopefully, people that have made those smaller mistakes in their lives are going to be able to become more upwardly mobile,” Bliefnick said.
What is a municipal citation?
A municipal citation is issued for violating a local ordinance, which is a city-specific law.
Common municipal citations are issued for offenses such as traffic violations, disorderly conduct and curfew violations. These citations are handled in municipal court and typically result in fines rather than criminal charges.
Milwaukee Municipal Court regularly handles up to 60,000 cases a year – the highest volume of any municipal court in Wisconsin, according to county data.
In 2023, Milwaukee Municipal Court handled 70,527 cases – about 16% of the 442,231 municipal court cases statewide, according to a report from the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin.
The ruling
On April 10, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled in Oconomowoc Area School District v. Cota that municipal citations qualify as arrest records under the Wisconsin Fair Employment Act.
This means that, just like with felonies and misdemeanors, employers cannot base employment decisions – such as hiring, firing, promotion or transfer – solely on municipal citations in a person’s record.
This ruling is a clarification of existing law, said Summer Murshid, an attorney practicing at Hawks Quindel, an employment law firm in Milwaukee.
The court had not previously said one way or another whether municipal citations counted as arrest records, and now it has answered that question, Murshid said.
This answer helps level the playing field for many Milwaukee residents with a municipal citation on their record, said Ruben Gaona, executive director of My Way Out, an organization that supports people reentering the community after incarceration.
“I’m real big on getting to know the author before you read the book. Get to know an individual before you make a decision – because we talk about second chances heavily,” Gaona said.
“If you really want to talk about fair-chance employment, then fair-chance employment looks like giving someone a true opportunity – because the mistake they committed does not define who they are.”
A potential catch
While the ruling is intended to limit employment discrimination, it could ironically result in it, Justice Janet Protasiewicz warned in a concurring opinion.
“The outcome of this case turns the stated purpose of the (Wisconsin Fair Employment) Act upside down – pushing employers to terminate employees as quickly as possible to avoid the risk of liability … ,” Protasiewicz wrote.
In at-will employment states like Wisconsin, employers can fire employees for nearly any reason – or no reason at all – as long as it’s not explicitly illegal.
Resources
People who believe they have faced employment discrimination based on a citation, arrest or conviction record can file a complaint with the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development’s Equal Rights Division.
People typically have 300 days from the date of the alleged discrimination to file a complaint.
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